None of the poll options really express how I feel about bitcoin. I feel it will become very successful, then fail in the medium term. Converting all of my USD (I live in Canada) to bitcoin is about all I want to do with it at the moment. I would not be comfortable keeping my retirement savings in Bitcions.

IMO, BitCoin will fail under the following conditions:

Wide-spread computer compromise; making wallets non-secret.

Severe government repression.

The latency limitations of the protocol become a problem.

I have reason to believe that all 3 may happen in my lifetime.

Most computers are made in one country (China) and include chips from one company (Intel). Computers are now so complex that nobody knows them from top-to-bottom. The only way to get secure computers is to either simplify the design or prove each abstraction layer correct. The latter will take about 6 generations.

We have already seen this with attempts to curb copyright infringement. Domains have been seized, Europe and Australia are working to set up their own firewall modeled loosely on China's great firewall. If you read the Terms Of Service for your residential Internet connection, you will see you actually only get half an Internet connection. Though, as things stabilize, only about 2192 52596 hosts entities will be mining and processing transactions anyway (expect transaction fees when this happens).

Severely isolated groups of people can not process transactions. Similarly, these groups can not check with the network to prevent double-spending. The TCP time-out is about 2 minutes. As long as the protocol relies on IRC, your latency must be lower than 2 minutes (round trip time). This means that any Mars colony can not use Bitcoin. Down here on Earth, it means that the protocol can not take advantage of couriers moving data across borders. Only wallets can move across borders using a physical medium.

Faith is a rejection of reason and evidence. Bitcoin as money is logically sound, and the evidence so far suggests it will succeed.

These are not guarantees, but so far I haven't seen anything to suggest that it will fail. Unlike fiat currency which is backed by the violence of the government, bitcoin is backed by the cooperative competition of the internet.

Faith is a rejection of reason and evidence. Bitcoin as money is logically sound, and the evidence so far suggests it will succeed.

These are not guarantees, but so far I haven't seen anything to suggest that it will fail. Unlike fiat currency which is backed by the violence of the government, bitcoin is backed by the cooperative competition of the internet.

"so far" isn't enough in that case.actually, talking about money[of ANY kind]/valuables is SERIOUS business. usually."i haven't seen it !!" (c) from carhit pedestrian explanation.note: 90% of security activity is not dealing with problems, but eleminating them BEFORE they outbreak into catastrophe !ie, evading crisis is best way to deal with it as best way to win war is w/o right war.

Faith is a rejection of reason and evidence. Bitcoin as money is logically sound, and the evidence so far suggests it will succeed.

These are not guarantees, but so far I haven't seen anything to suggest that it will fail. Unlike fiat currency which is backed by the violence of the government, bitcoin is backed by the cooperative competition of the internet.

"so far" isn't enough in that case.actually, talking about money[of ANY kind]/valuables is SERIOUS business. usually."i haven't seen it !!" (c) from carhit pedestrian explanation.note: 90% of security activity is not dealing with problems, but eleminating them BEFORE they outbreak into catastrophe !ie, evading crisis is best way to deal with it as best way to win war is w/o right war.

Evidence that doesn't exist is irrelevant. "So far" acknowledges the uncertainty, the potential, that evidence might surface to change my mind and declare bitcoin a failure. This has not happened. With that said, I am not selling any of my gold or silver holdings in exchange for btc.

Sure - it would be nice if reward or success of any new venture could be guaranteed and thus the risk eliminated. You need to decide for yourself what your risk tolerance is. If you think you can walk on the sidewalk without getting hit by a car, then by all means. But if you're worried about the car, then do what you need to do to mitigate that risk. If you're walking on the sidewalk, you are probably not concerned about getting hit by an airplane, even though it has a probability > 0.

If the risk of the plane or the car are too much for you, get off the sidewalk.